Poker Chip Case #2: Day 2

I had seen the Wood Whisperer’s poker chip trays, and I like them, but they weren’t exactly what I wanted, though he did give me a great idea on how to make the trays that were going to hold the chips in my case, but more on that later.

Yesterday I spent the day making sawdust out of some nice looking Padauk and Maple. Here is the 8/4 board of Padauk as it sits on my jointer and some of the bright bright orange chips that came out of it.

Here is the beautiful looking wood after it has been jointed a little. I must say I am really happy with the grain and the color, though I think I will be staining it to get a more reddish color, but I haven’t totally made up my mind on that.

I was following the dimensions from my sketchup drawing, and I mindlessly milled all of my stock down to rough and then final dimensions. I had also glued up the bottom and the top so that I could plane them down to final thickness and cut them to their final dimensions

By the time I was done, I had come to the conclusion that I had made a mistake in my initial drawing. I had originally intended the front/back and sides of the case to be 3/8” thick, and when I got out to the shop and made my maple that thick, I realized that it just wouldn’t do for what I wanted. This basically made me go to bed a little bit unhappy with myself. I didn’t really want to go spend any significant amount of money on some more maple, but I just didn’t think that the 3/” size of the front would work on an almost 21” box. As I was drifting off to sleep, I remembered that I had recently made a purchase of a couple board feet of curly maple that was just shy of 4/4 thick. I thought I just might have enough of that to make the four pieces that I needed, and that definitely allowed me to sleep a little easier.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t have enough for all four pieces. I milled up two of them with the intention of making a trip to my Woodcraft store this morning after it opened to pick up some more. Lo and behold, they had enough for me to make my last two pieces and have some left over. I wish that I hadn’t had to spend the money, but I think the look will be better with the curly maple and a 1/2” thickness. Now I have all the pieces milled to their correct final size and I can get started on the other work. I had to go run some errands, so I put off the cutting for a bit.

When I returned home, I started work on the trays to hold the chips. Here is where the Wood Whisperer comes in. His idea of clamping the two trays together and using a forstner bit to the diameter of the chips was very useful. Of course, my chips are 1 9/16” in diameter and anyone who knows hole saws and forstner bits, or at least their normal sizes knows that most stores don’t stock this particular size, but I was in luck, Woodcraft had the exact size I needed and it was actually in stock at the store.

Here is the first blank clamped up and the story stick of dimensions on it waiting for me to start drilling.

Here is me starting drilling the first hole:

Here is the first hole finished:

Which by the way wasn’t as easy as I had expected. My drill press only has somewhere around a 2” quill distance, and of course the blanks are 3 1/2” thick which makes each hole a little bit of a pain, but overall it came out just peachy as you can see by this picture of some poker chips stacked in the hole.

Success! Now for 7 more holes. I am writing this in between holes as the Wood Whisperer wisely suggested letting the bit cool down between the drilling of each hole. I don’t know how much more of the cutting I will do tonight, but I will be sure to take more pictures and post tomorrow.

VT-Are you aware that the padauk will oxidize to a much darker brownish orange with exposure to UV light? I wish it would stay bright orange (just as I wish purpleheart would stay bright purple), but even treating it with UV inhibitors will not keep this from happening over time. Just thought I would throw in my two cents before you stain your new piece. Like Sawdust2, I look forward to your progress, as I have those on my long list of things to make too.